


Connie Swap Episode 8: Sadie Miller's Day Off

by br42, BurdenKing, CoreyWW, MjStudioArts



Series: Connieswap [8]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Art, Bad Ideas, Books, Donuts, Drama, Dramedy, Driving, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Hanging Out, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Innuendo, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Momswap, Monster of the Week, Multi, Pictures, Road Trips, Slice of Life, Some Humor, Steven Universe AU, Teenage Drama, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-16 22:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11262738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurdenKing/pseuds/BurdenKing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoreyWW/pseuds/CoreyWW, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts
Summary: Jenny Pizza has invited Sadie along for a little road trip with the Cool Kids. Leaving Lars to cover for her for once, she drags Connie along for moral support.





	1. Joy Ride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone. First off, this is the inaugural chapter with CoreyWW as a full member of the team! Those familiar with his works will probably recognize some shifts in the style and content of this chapter as a result, all for the better in the Team's opinion.

Connie woke to a welcome sound she hadn't heard in some time: bustle and conversation in the kitchen by multiple people. She smiled and rolled over to face the interior of the Beach House, cracking open her eyes to see both Jasper and Peridot preparing a meal.

Peridot and her floating fingers were working at a multitude of tasks, preparing an omelette as well as a variety of sliced fruit. Jasper was using a large mixing spoon with a reinforced handle (that Peridot had created specially for her) to mix the contents of a titanium mixing bowl (also custom built); it had become clear in the wake of a swath of broken kitchen implements that the Perfect Quartz required especially robust cookware.

Connie was guessing pancakes given Peridot and Jasper's chatter and the rather battered batter's splatter on the latter's tattered... apron.

The girl would probably have feigned sleep just to watch them at work, but she was betrayed by a loud growl from her stomach. Two colorful faces turned to look at her, making her cheeks flush.

"Hehe... morning," Connie said, sitting up and stretching her arms out as her bare feet touched the floor of her loft. She was wearing the long, teal night gown she liked for the colder nights of January and February, with some warm pj pants underneath. The bare feet were simply a quirk of hers.

"Good morning, Connie. Breakfast preparations will be completed before too much longer," Peridot called out, one set of digits using a spatula to fold the omelette in the pan while another set added pinches of salt.

Jasper nodded to the girl. "Pancakes. Whole wheat," she said.

Connie turned her cellphone on, removing it from the bedside table it had been slumbering on alongside its owner, and tapped in her password as she padded down the steps.

Taking a seat by the counter, Connie checked for messages (there were none), then whiled away some time playing BoxIt, a little game Steven had turned her on to. The cooking noises and conversational duet between nasal alto and gravelly tenor proved a comforting background to her morning.

After failing yet again to make it past level seventeen, Connie closed the game and noticed an update alert from the Keep Beach City Weird app, another addition courtesy of Steven's influence.

 _Okay, Maheswaran, it's been thirty days so keep those expectations realistic. This is just something I'm checking because Steven will probably bring it up later, and not because Ronaldo spotted Lapis napping on the roof of the fry shop,_ thought a corner of Connie.

 _Besides, I already asked Peedee about that_ , added a different corner.

A moment of excitement put the lie to Connie's motives as she saw mention of strange behavior out at sea: the Eobard, a cruise ship, had stumbled across a surfaced shipwreck containing ancient gold and silver coins. Scientists speculated about gas build-ups or a pinning mass shifting loose, but Ronaldo lost his patience (and Connie's interest) when he announced it was clearly the work of the same malignant force that had sunk Atlantis.

 _Blah blah blah Delmarva Triangle; blah blah blah irregular weather during an eating contest; blah blah blah atlantean ghosts hungry for revenge and buffet food_ , narrated Connie’s inner critic, clearly unimpressed.

"Here ya go, squirt. Eat up; Peridot and I will be out for a while," interrupted Jasper as a platter was pushed towards the distracted girl.

Finding KBCW poor food for thought, Connie turned to the better meal at hand and tucked in.

"Yes," added Peridot, "something is causing damage to some of the geo-sensors set up in the annoyingly misnomered region of Iceland; I'll be making repairs while Jasper combs the area for the vandal responsible."

Connie nodded between bites of very fluffy pancakes.

Peridot, turning away from the six separate cleaning tasks she was performing, looked at the girl once more and added, “You won’t leave the greater city area or employ the warp whistle while we’re away, will you? Your recent impetuousness may have turned out well but I’d rather you didn’t make haring off unannounced a habit.”

Connie, after hurriedly chewing and swallowing a large bite, managed to answer, "No ma’am. I’ll probably see what Steven is up to. Maybe do some reading. Oh,” and she turned to Jasper, “and I’ll be sure to run through those sword forms you taught me with my practice saber.”

Peridot and Jasper both nodded in approval. “Have a pleasant day, dear. Try to avoid any fights,” said the former.

“And if you can’t, be sure to win ‘em,” said the latter, the corner of her wide mouth upturned.

Peridot merely tsked and rolled her eyes before turning back to hammering out the dents in Jasper’s mixing bowl.

* * *

Connie leaned out of the bathroom and waved goodbye to Jasper and Peridot. After the beam of light dissipated revealing an empty warp pad, Connie turned back to assembling her look for the day.

It was the start of February and even though it was fairly mild out for the time of year, Connie dressed warmly. Leggings and an oversized sweater, with some lighter clothing underneath. Hat and scarf packed into her bag for later. 

Then Connie went through the process of brushing out her hair so she could work it up into a bun: good for keeping it out of her face when those late winter winds picked up.

With bobby pins resting between her teeth, Connie could hear her phone chime from where she’d left it on the kitchen counter over breakfast. She walked over, being careful to keep her head upright lest her under-construction hairdo topple free, and picked up the phone with her free hand.

_* StUn - 09:50am | Good morning Connie!!!1!_  
_* StUn - 09:51am | Or should I say good morrow Carella Serpenthelm_  
_* CoMa - 9:53am | And you as well, Journeyman Peggio. Shall we adjourn somewhere for merriment?_

The response was almost immediate, the smile on Connie’s face dimming as she read the text.

_* StUn - 9:54am | Im sorry I can’t :( My parents and me are going 2 Empire for the day. Some legal thing about a burger jingle._  
_* StUn - 9:55am | I thought it was funny and dad kinda laughed but mom has that look >:(_  
_* StUn - 9:55am | Sorry :C_

Like Steven’s emoticon, Connie frowned. She was really hoping Steven would be around. Especially with Peridot and Jasper gone, he’d really help keep her mind off… things.

_* CoMa - 9:56am | It’s okay. Don’t worry about it._  
_* StUn - 9:56am | Everything ok?_

_When was the last time everything had actually been okay?,_ Connie thought, a touch bitterly. But she wasn’t going to put all that on Steven.

_* CoMa - 9:57am | I just wanted to hang out. Have a good time :)_  
_* StUn - 9:57am | Ok. I’ll let you know the second I get back ^-^_  
_* StUn - 9:58am | Then we can grab some bits and you can tell me more about those mutants_  
_* StUn - 9:59am | I promise 2 have my ears charged this time :P_

Chuckling a little, Connie fired off a final goodbye and pocketed the phone. She did feel a little better, actually. Unfortunately, several bobby pins went flying in the process and, using both hands on instinct to grab at them, her hair fell in a mess over her eyes.

_Note to self: Don’t laugh while doing your hair… Clearly a bad idea._

* * *

Connie walked over to her reading spot near a secluded stretch of the cliff, her nose already deep in _The Cursed Scion_. Although she had never been able to summon her sword since that fateful day back in September, Connie had made a habit of reading in that spot often just in case the environmental conditions helped her weapon manifest a second time.

Plus it was a darn good place for some serious literary contemplation, which she was engaged in now.

This was actually Connie’s third read-through of the new _Spirit Morph Saga_ book. Brow furrowed, eyes squinting, corners of her mouth turned downward, and her teeth slightly clenched, it was clear this additional reading wasn’t going particularly well.

 _It’s not bad, exactly, it’s just…,_ trailed off a corner of Connie’s mind as the text flitted across her vision.

 _Dumb? Clumsy? A shameless cash-in written by some hack who,_ somehow, _managed to con the author of the series into endorsing this as canon?,_ offered a vitriolic second corner.

Connie took a deep, slow breath, closing her eyes and trying to steady her thoughts. For better or for worse, this was a _Spirit Morph Saga_ book and it simply wouldn’t do to read critically with eyes clouded by hate.

_Oookay. Calm breathing. Let’s keep this short and productive. Steven will have his own copy soon and we’ll probably be able to talk about it in another couple weeks. It won’t do anyone any good if I go into a bibliophilic rampage two minutes into the discussion. So, I’m pretty sure the story goes off the rails...,_ and she opened her eyes, flipping to a heavily annotated page midway through the story, _...right here. If I can dissect this passage here before raging out then I’ll have earned a donut for literary diligence._

Nodding to herself, Connie read.

> _Walking carefully but confidently, Lisa entered the final chamber. ‘Archie won’t be able to hold the scion off indefinitely’, Lisa reminded herself, hoping fervently her falcon-turned-human husband was yet unharmed._
> 
> _The walls were lined with funeral urns and tokens offered to the departed. In the center of the musty mausoleum was a pillar upon which a squat and ugly figurine of stone sat. Using her witch sight, Lisa detected and made quick work of the wards, then approached the dais._
> 
> _“You know me,” said the stone idol, the words somehow appearing directly in Lisa’s thoughts, bypassing her ears entirely._
> 
> _“I do. You are the Statue of Limitations, an artifact both coveted and cursed. But I will not use you. I am merely here to prevent another from staking her claim,” answered Lisa, the conviction in her voice falling on stone ears and dusty walls._
> 
> _“I cannot be moved for I am of the Firmament itself. You will claim me or forsake my boon forever, here, now, for that is my way. I am the means divorced from the ends and I am the end preempting the means. Answer you my riddle?” came the gravelly reply._
> 
> _Lisa nodded with a smirk. “I have learned much from the last writings of those who lie in repose within this very tomb.You allow a person to unlock their full potential, immediately and completely. No training. No practice. Success without sacrifice.”_
> 
> _An evil chuckle filled the witch’s thoughts. “There is sacrifice, witchling. What is lost is the journey itself. Are you really so wise you have nothing left to learn? Would you, endowed with the fullness of your abilities, abilities that would allow you to aid your precious, erstwhile familiar,” and an oily smugness intruded on Lisa’s thoughts, “wield them as well as were they hard-won? Answer now and forever live with the consequences.”_
> 
> _Lisa drew a breath and thought briefly. The truth of spirit companions. Destiny’s End. Plinkman. All this and more had she unraveled while still a girl and now, older, accomplished, respected by her Oxford peers and wizarding brethren alike, she stood as the last bulwark against the cursed scion and the terrible things that would follow her full awakening._
> 
> _“I answer you, statue. I will take up your boon and curse alike. I am not like the others. I have been forged in the fires of adversity and walked in the steps of legends and gods alike when I was but an ingénue,” came her voice, firm and forceful._
> 
> _“So say you. So say them all. It is done, and only time will tell if I will see eternity pass with your remains nestled within my sepulcher.”_

Connie started to read further but a wave of indignation washed over her like a physical force. Grabbing urgently for the pencil tucked behind her ear, she added angry annotations to the margins of the page, though there was precious little room to spare after her previous attempts at analyzing this passage.

“...brazen and out-of-character, Lisa would never accept the Statue’s quick road to power, especially after her encounter with the Mad Hierarch from _Welcome to the Wizarding Wild_ -” but the forceful writing broke the tip of her pencil, and with it, the last of her patience.

“UGH!” yelled Connie, removing the offending book from her sight by brusquely shoving it into her backpack.

 _Okay, a donut of literary diligence is out, but I’m pretty sure a donut of deconstructive rage can be arranged_ , thought a corner of Connie as she shouldered her pack.

 _Make it two and it’s a deal_ , came the reply.

* * *

Connie stomped on down the beach, muttering darkly under her breath. Entering the Big Donut with a chime, Connie set her stuff down on a table, then made her way to the counter and found Sadie in a similarly disgruntled mood, the clerk letting out an annoyed groan.

“Do you have to be a complete jerk, like, _all_ of the time?!” exclaimed Sadie.

“I didn’t even want to come in today! You strong-armed me into it. Literally!” was Lars’ indignant response.

“This is your JOB!” Sadie all but screamed, arms wide in exasperation.

“Yeah? Well, I’m entitled to breaks on this job and I’m going to use one. Right. Now,” Lars said, before swiping a donut, strolling past a stunned Sadie, and heading into the recesses of the shop.

The silence was broken only by the popping of Sadie’s knuckles as the stocky blonde dropped her hands to her side, fists clenched.

“So… rough day?” asked Connie, not that there was any question about the answer.

“I guess you could call it that,” Sadie said with an expansive sigh, shaking her head and rolling her shoulders.

Connie cocked an eyebrow. “If you want a book to chuck at him, I’ve got a one handy. Best use for it, really, unless you’ve got a wobbly table that needs propping up.”

Sadie laughed, then grimaced. “Don’t tempt me. No, that’s just Lars… being Lars.” Another expansive sigh. “He has to give me a hard time whenever there’s actual work involved.”

Connie blinked. “It’s… really not my place to ask, but if he doesn’t do his job, how come he’s never gotten in trouble here for it?” she asked. “Isn’t there a manager or--”

“Well,” Sadie said, rubbing the back of her neck, “ _technically_ I am the supervisor.”

 _Huh_ , thought Connie. _I mean, it’s not like I’ve actually seen anyone else working here._

“Why don’t you write him up or, you know, fire him if you have to?” Connie asked after Sadie failed to say anything further.

The clerk stared at Connie in shock, as if that had never occurred to her. Her cheeks faintly flushed.

“Well, I--”

Before Sadie could answer, the bell of the front entrance rang, making Connie look over her shoulder. A vaguely familiar woman with large, yellow earrings entered, quickly grabbed a few cans of Strawberry Sugar Shock Shutdown, and headed to the counter.

“Hey~” she cooed, smiling between the two. “Ooo, you look like someone stole the last slice of your pizza. Girl, you looking down…” She frowned at Sadie.

“Oh, hi Jenny… No one stole anything from me. Just having a rough day. Anyway, the usual?” she asked, pulling a box out from under the counter.

“You know it.” She smiled, slightly leaning on the counter as she looked to Connie.

“Hey there, cutie!” Jenny said, crouching down slightly. “What’s your name?”

“C-Connie. Connie Maheswaran.”

“Jenny Pizza. Nice to meet you, Con-con. Can I call you Con-con? It would make the _best_ nickname,” she observed with a chuckle.

“Oh. Uh, some do use that nickname for me, yeah. So, go ahead, I suppose,” answered Connie, acting every inch the introvert caught in the headlights of an extrovert’s attention.

“Alright, that’s chill.” Jenny looked about to say more when the song “Haven’t You Noticed (I’m a Star)” blared out. “Oh, one sec,” and she pulled her phone out of her pocket, ending the song as she answered. “What’s good, Creamsicle?” She started moving away from the counter. “Yeah, I’m still gonna call you that!”

Once Jenny had walked away, Connie leaned over to Sadie.

“Is she a friend of yours?” she asked.

Sadie’s cheeks flushed faintly as she began filling the box with donuts.

“Well… s-sorta, I guess,” she stammered. “Might just be wishful thinking on my part, though. Jenny and her friends are really cool people. They come in from time to time. Her family runs the pizza place on the boardwalk. Actually, are you allowed to eat pizza?” Sadie asked, head popping up from under the display case to give Connie a questioning look.

“Yeah, though not too often. And I ate there with my dad on New Year’s Day as a matter of fact,” said Connie, her eyes going a tad melancholy before adding, “They have good lemonade, by the way.”

Sadie gave the girl a searching look before responding. “I’ll keep that in mind. So, one of her friends is Buck, the mayor’s son, and the other is this really cool kid named Sour Cream. I think he’s a DJ or something,” Sadie spoke, excitement creeping into her voice.

“They do sound pretty cool,” Connie chuckled. “Have you ever hung out with them or--”

Sadie closed up the box and gave a self-deprecating laugh.

“Pfft, yeah right, _me_ hang out with the Cool Kids? That’d be awesome but, in case you haven’t noticed,” and she gestured over her shoulder towards the back of the shop, “I don’t exactly attract the best company.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m sure they’d--”

Before Connie could finish, they were interrupted by Jenny loudly exclaiming nearby.

“Great idea! I’ll be there in a bit!” Jenny said. “Later, boo!”

Jenny ended the call and walked back over.

“Shortcake,” Jenny said affectionately towards Sadie, “Cream had himself a good idea: come join me and the crew? We’re going to take a joy ride out of town, enjoy the views.”

“I-I can’t do that. I’m on the clock,” Sadie spoke up, sliding the box across the counter and ringing up the total.

“Aw, come on. It’ll be fun~” Jenny singsonged, a bright smile on her face.

Sadie’s face ran through a sequence of emotions, as if unsure which to wear and just trying them all to see what looked best. She settled on an ensemble consisting of steely resolve, with sly glee to accent.

“...Why not! Lars can pick up the slack for once!” she exclaimed righteously.

“Yeah! You go, donut-girl,” called Jenny.

This seemed to burst Sadie’s confidence bubble. Eyes wide, the blonde looked around as if seeing the others for the first time.

“And let’s bring Connie!” added Sadie a little too forcefully.

“What?!” squawked the girl.

“Sure,” answered Jenny, emanating casual confidence. “I’m gettin’ good vibes off her and we got room in the pizzamobile.”

Connie tried to communicate her profound surprise to the clerk telepathically or, failing that, through a questioning gaze.

“Let me put it another way,” said Sadie. “You can come with us,” and she gave Connie a pleading look, “or you’re free to stay here with Lars,” she finished, her voice suddenly deadpan.

Connie blinked, letting the thought sink in. “I’ll go gather my things.”

“Awesome! Meet you gals outside. I’ll pull the car up front; hope you don’t mind, it smells a little like pizza,” said Jenny, paying for her food and heading out while Connie gathered her belongings.

Sadie went into a panic the second the door shut behind her.

“Gah! Why did I agree to go?! I can’t ditch Lars here! He’d show up late to his own funeral and then sneak out before the end!”

“Whoa! Calm down, Sadie,” said Connie in the same tone of voice she’d once seen a television character use on a spooked horse. “You deserve a break and… it could be fun?” she said, unable to pack in the conviction she was reaching for and instead inflecting her sentence up into a question.

Just then there was some noise from the back, as though a chair were being scooted over and a door propped open.

“Hey Sadie,” called Lars, “you mind bringing me another donut? Oh, and a soda while you’re at it. Speaking of, I think one of the stacks of soda is leaking; you should probably look into that.”

Sadie had the awestruck look of someone having an epiphany. “Ohhh riiight… If I don’t leave here, I may end up feeding him his own ear gauges,” she said in a soft voice.

Out front Jenny pulled up in her pizza-decorated car, two others riding with her, and she gave a quick pair of honks.

Without a word, the blonde pulled off her work shirt, revealing an undershirt beneath. She stuffed the shirt somewhere beneath the register and pulled a coat out from the same space.

“Sadie! Are you-” said Lars but he was cut off when Sadie called down the hallway.

“Hey, I’m heading out early. Cover for me?”

“Wait, wha-”

Without waiting for a coherent response, Sadie strode towards the door, saying loudly over her shoulder, “Thanks Player One!” 

She barreled through the door, Connie hurrying after the blonde, then the pair hopped into the car as Lars came out from the back visibly confused. By the time he could make sense of the scene before him, Jenny had already floored the accelerator, causing the car to rocket off with a screech.

“Wait! Sadie!” protested Lars before adding a resigned, ‘aaah crap.’ Then he noticed the soda that had seeped along the floor from the back room, pooling around his shoes. “Man… I don’t get paid enough for this,” he said to no one.

* * *

“Woohoo!” Connie cried out, pulling forward in her seat, before feeling suddenly self-aware and scooching back into position.

“Sit back, Con-con. Safety first and junk!” Jenny called back from the driver seat, adjusting the rear-view mirror.

“Let’s get some spaced out beats up in here,” Sour Cream added from the passenger seat before turning on the radio and beginning to bob his head.

“Nice choice, Creamsicle,” Buck said sitting immediately behind the DJ who was now groaning in response.

“She has you doing that too? Come on, man…”

“Ha!” gloated Jenny. “Anyways, gals, this is Buck,” he gave them an acknowledging tilt of the head, “and Sour Cream,” who gave a casual wave without interrupting his bobbing along to the beat.

“Guys. Sadie, also known as ‘Shortcake’, and Con-con.”

“You, uh, can also call me Connie,” added the girl, still flushed from her previous bout of self-consciousness.

“Nice to meet you guys,” said Buck, his expression unreadable behind his mirrored shades.

Sour Cream turned the music down a little and turned to peek back at Connie.

“So, uh, Connie? As in, Connie Maheswaran?”

Connie, feeling exposed despite being sandwiched between Buck and Sadie in the backseat, asked in an uncertain voice, “Yeah… why?”

“Ah!” said Sour Cream in what, for him, passed as an excited tone, “So you’re the famous Connie! You know, Steven has told me about you.”

“You and Steven hang out?”

“Some. He helps me with my sets on weekends. He’s really great at it. Makes everything roll real smooth and really knows his way around, like, chords and stuff.”

“R-Really? He never mentioned doing any of that…” said Connie, trying to reconcile this Steven with the one she knew who would almost grimace just picking up an instrument. Clearing her throat, she added, “You said he talked about me?”

“Uh…” said Sour Cream, his mind casting back to just the previous weekend.

_\--Her favorite color is yellow and she reads a lot, oh, oh, and she’s magical! Like, actually knows magic! Gah! And she goes on these cool adventures all the time. She likes baked chips but only sometimes and she can play violin and SHE HAS A SWORD! I mentioned that right? I mean, she did have a sword… she’s having a hard time summoning it again, but she can also make these big force field thingies--_

“He mentioned you, like, once or twice,” said Sour Cream before coughing into his fist and adding, “You know, we don’t talk much while the music is happening. But yeah, he’s great. Works hard. Very responsible. Uh, clean. Like some music folks and roadie types have this funk but Steven-”

Jenny rolled her eyes at Sour Cream’s make-shift wingmanship. “So where to, everybody?” she interjected, fingers drumming the steering wheel to the beat.

“We could do… the arcade?” Sadie suggested.

“Nah, I beat most of the games in there…” said the pale DJ.

“Really? My dad and I do a big gamefest there once a year. We’ll play for hours, but I doubt we’ve beaten more than a couple of games there, tops,” Connie recalled.

“Meh, just a matter of having the time free, ya know?” came the reply from the front.

Sadie scratched her chin. “Um, what about the amusement park?”

Head hunched low, Connie stammered out, “A-Actually, I’m banned there,” and then added, “For life.”

Buck, who had otherwise been staring out at the view the whole time, turned, a single eyebrow peeking up over his shades. “How’d you manage that?”

“It’s a long story…” said Connie with a nervous chuckle.

Meanwhile Jenny pulled up to a stop sign. Nearby the mayor was doing his thing, kissing babies, giving out buttons, and working a crowd of the voting public.

 _Is anyone even running against him?,_ thought an incredulous corner of Connie’s mind.

“Man, those kisses are fake,” said Buck. “He never kissed me like that. Made me the man I am today.” With a shrug, the man returned to his state of cool detachment.

“Aww boo, it was worth it then,” Jenny chuckled before pressing on the gas, leaving the mayoral spectacle receding into the distance. Struck suddenly by an idea, Jenny bounced with excitement in her seat.

“Oh my gosh, guys! I know where we should go!” she said, turning onto a side street and shifting gears.

“Where?” asked Connie, still leaning into Sadie from the force of the turn.

“It’s this place just outside of town, a quarry, but, like, shut down. It’s full of these big old boulders! It’s chill. You’ll love it!”

“Y-Yeah, um, I love big old rocks. Haha…” said Sadie before sinking lower into her seat and facepalming.

“Yeah! Big rocks!” echoed Sour Cream, completely sincerely. He turned in his seat, pulled glow sticks out of his pockets and tossed them gently onto the laps of those in the back seat.

“Sorry. Would have thrown them higher, but littering isn’t cool.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” Sadie chuckled, gathering up a few glow sticks, “I appreciate your care for the environment.”

Jenny sped up, laughing happily. “You smell that fresh air? That’s what I’m talkin’ bout!”

“You know what doesn’t smell like fresh air?” asked Sour Cream, pausing for effect.

"Fish!" said Jenny. 

"I’m gonna guess, fish," replied Buck. 

“Fish...” answered Sour Cream.

Jenny gave a chuckle and reached out, patting Sour Cream’s shoulder. “Ah, Creamsicle, let it out; car’s a safe place.”

“My step-dad was on me again today about wanting to be a DJ. He was all like, ‘Muh, muh muh muh’s muh muh muhmuh muh muh muhmuh muhmuhmuh muh muh muh muh muh muh muhmuh muh muh muh muh muh muh muh muh muh muh muh muh.’ And it’s like, I’m not fishing for my big catch, step-dad, I’m making people dance. That’s good enough for me so why don’t you go back to your boat?”

Connie, in the middle of Sour Cream relaying what could only be Yellowtail’s fatherly advice, caught herself wiggling her ears to Steven for help and had to play it off like she was scratching an itch.

“At least it’s only your career he’s on about. My dad’s on me all the time about oratory tutors, volunteer work in my free time, maybe auditing some poli-sci courses. Like, ‘you should do that; you’re the mayor’s son,’ and I’m like, you can’t tell me what to do; I’m the mayor’s… wait.”

Jenny wasn’t laughing but everyone could feel her intent to laugh radiating out. “Ah, come on, you two. You don’t know bad until you have a super sister who’s up running at dawn, doing _all_ the volunteer work, takes double shifts in the family business, and got better grades than you at, like, everything. Man, I didn’t set out to be the evil twin; it was a survival strategy.”

Sadie reentered the conversational fray with, "Family stuff, right?" which earned groans of agreement from the others.

“So Shortcake, what’s your deal? This is all old gripes for the pizzamobile. Lay something new on us,” invited Jenny, looking right at Sadie in the rear-view mirror.

"Me? Well, my mom is really overbearing and takes everything up to eleven. She's a smother mother," she quipped lamely then looked surprised when it earned genuine chuckles and knowing nods from around the car. 

"But I have this friend and he's not so bad when you get to know him... outside of work," she amended after a pause. "And with him, I can just... relax. There's no risk of him making a big deal out of anything I say. It's nice..." and she trailed off, a small smile on her face.

"Oooh, sounds like someone's got it hard!" Jenny cooed after it was clear Sadie had said her piece.

Sadie's cheeks burned. She started to stammer a feeble protest but stopped when Buck reached past Connie and put a hand on the blonde's shoulder.

"It's okay. We invited you into our circle of trust and will respect that completely."

"Yeah," added Sour Cream, "lips locked up tight. What happens in the car stays in the car."

For some reason, Jenny abruptly started laughing. Sour Cream blushed, then gave Jenny's shoulder a light push. "Not what I meant, dude!" he objected.

"Huh?" Connie said without specifically meaning to.

Jenny's laughter died down. "Nothin', nothin', don't worry about it," she said, snickering.

The whole car seemed to take this as a good time to avail themselves of snacks and drinks Jenny had purchased. The ride was quiet for a time, save for the crack of sodas being opened and the occasional noises of appreciation.

"Connie," called Sour Cream while wiping crumbs off his oversized pants, "you must have some heavy things on your chest."

"You mean beside that bling of hers?" quipped Jenny, before her free hand went to her mouth. "Oh wait! That's not, like, racist or something?"

Connie said nothing at first, expecting another wisecrack from the group, then became aware that everyone was waiting on her. "Oh, no, it's fine. And it's not heavy," she said, poking her gemstone. "I mean, it probably _is_ heavy if you were holding it, but when it's attached to you, you don't notice the weight and I'msorrywhatwasthequestion?" she rambled out, flustered.

Gently, Sadie placed a hand on her knee. "Look, Connie, you don't have to if you don't want to, but it might help. I see things sometimes at the donut shop and they don't look simple, ya know?"

Connie nodded and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

_Talking to a bunch of near strangers, no matter how friendly, is, like, gem monster-levels of scary. However, it's a cliché for the heroine to bottle it all up and, after that hack-job I read earlier, anymore of that and I'd rather fight the monster._

Opening her eyes, Connie spoke slowly, uncertainly. "I guess I've been having trouble at home recently."

"Hmm," nodded Buck. "Parent trouble?"

"More-or-less. Lapis kinda left the house... for the second time since October, actually. And it's, um... kinda my fault."

"Whaaat? Come on, that can’t be right," said Jenny. "What makes you think that?"

Connie shook her head. "Short version: I messed up and failed to save an ancient spire with the magic statue I'd been entrusted with, which made Lapis really mad and made her say a lot of harsh things to Jasper and Peridot. Oh, they're the blue, orange, and green ones, respectively, if you don't know. Then Lapis flew off and came back two weeks later like nothing happened, which is sort of how my family deals with most of its problems now that I think about it..."

Connie trailed off, considering this new insight before shaking her head and pressing on. "So after that things cooled off for a bit, except my new friend and I had to harpoon a giant monster that almost killed us; Yellowtail was there so you might have heard about that one, Sour Cream. Then I spontaneously regressed in age over my birthday because magic is weird, but that was normal weird for me so it's not that big of a deal and things were fine for a while."

Connie barreled forward, propelled by an almost physical need to say all of this out loud. "But then on New Year's, Peridot and Lapis, who had been all flirty after working at the Big Donut together, danced and melded into this giant woman, which I guess is a thing that just happens now and then? It's unclear and fusion is a really touchy subject in my house... Anyway, Hiddenite, that's the giant woman's name, kicked off a kind of domestic dispute with Jasper and did a bunch of damage to my friend's yard, then said a bunch of super awkward things, like how everyone except Peridot kinda bailed when I was born because there's only one of these to go around," she said, tapping her gemstone, "so mom's effectively dead and that only happened because of me too..."

Buck lowered his shades and blinked, dazed. Sour Cream was looking at Connie with his mouth open. Jenny, meanwhile, had slowed down since it was all she could do to keep even a modicum of attention on the road.

"Then Hiddenite fell apart and Lapis flew off again, and only recently have Peridot and Jasper normalized a little, and even that required a shouting match in an ancient control room that, for some reason kinda filled with mutants..." she said, panting a little, then adding, "and tiny robots, but we brought those with us."

Sadie, stunned as the rest, opened her mouth to speak when Connie unknowingly preempted her. "Oh yeah, also, my dad has a new girlfriend that he told me about on New Year's Day and he wants me to meet her when he moves back into town in a couple of weeks, because he's been away on business for most of my life but I think maybe the whole age regression thing made him rethink his life or something. So that happened too... Yeah, that's, uh, that's it for the short version."

The silence was heavy in the car after that.

Jenny pulled over onto a small dirt road and put the car in park. She flipped off the radio and filled the silence by saying, "That's heavy."

"Whoooa," added Sour Cream. "I, uh... heh, I feel pretty bad talking about my problems when you're sitting on all of that."

Connie hunched down in her seat. "Sorry, I wasn't trying to invalidate anyone."

"Hey! No one thinks that. 'Sides, we asked you to unload," said Jenny. "Not your fault you're carrying so much."

Buck pushed the glasses back up his nose and fixed Connie with what she assumed was a sincere gaze. "Yeah, you've got moxie. I respect that."

"Really?" asked Connie. "Because I sure don't feel like it."

Jenny shook her head. "You kiddin'? I wouldn't know how to deal with parents turnin' into a giant or whatever."

"I wouldn't either," added Sour Cream.

"Neither would Buck," said Buck.

Sadie spoke up, surprising Connie a little since she'd kind of forgotten the blonde was sitting next to her. "You don't have it easy, Connie, but you keep it together way better than I would at... actually, I don't know how old I'd need to be to handle regular monster attacks on top of four kinda-parents each dealing with their own issues. And you said all of this has been going on since October?"

Connie nodded.

"Well, look, keeping all that down isn’t a great idea, even if you are a magical warrior-in-training or something," said Sadie. "You've got to figure out how to organize it all so nothing stays bottled up too long but you don't lose the good stuff either."

Connie looked at Sadie perplexed, utterly failing to follow along. The Cool Kids, meanwhile, had somehow done that thing the socially adept can do where, in a moment’s time, they go from looming large in the conversation to being invisible.

Sadie ran her hands through her hair and made a noise of frustration. "Ugh, I’m saying this poorly. See, you need to compartmentalize. Like, I love my mom and she loves me back, but I'm careful what I tell her about because if I wasn't she'd make a huge deal out of something she shouldn't and it’d make us both the worse for it. And Lar- uh, my friend is someone I can go to to unwind but I know better than to expect him to listen to me unload about most things. You... what's the word?... Oh! You accentuate the good, mitigate the bad, and try and find people who'll cover all the bases for you."

Connie digested all of this for a moment, before saying slowly, "Wow, that... actually makes a lot of sense."

"Here, here!" cried Jenny, startling the introverts slightly and holding aloft a can of soda. "Cheers to figuring out what you can and can't tell the 'rents to avoid getting thrown out!"

Buck chuckled.

Sour Cream laughed, if a touch nervously, and clinked cans with the delivery girl. "I'll drink to that."

Connie laughed too, in a mixture of anxious energy and relief. Slowly she became aware of a heavy tightness, noticing it now only due to it easing within her.

"Um, weren't we going to a rock pit or something?" asked Sadie, looking at her surroundings, puzzled.

Jenny grinned. "Oh, we're already here, or as far as the pizzamobile can take us. But Guru Shortcake was laying down the wisdom for Con-con, so I just left the car idling." With that she turned off the vehicle.

"It is uncool to intrude on the passing of earthly knowledge," said Buck matter-of-factly as he unbuckled himself from his seat.

"Yeah, fish-dad says that all the time," agreed Sour Cream, stepping out of the car.

* * *

There was an ancient but tenacious coat hanger lying in the dirt that had gotten snarled in Sour Cream's voluminous pants shortly after he'd gotten out of the vehicle.

Sadie had been the one to disentangle the DJ after Buck and Jenny had only served to make it worse and 'accidentally' pants the man, respectively.

Connie had distinguished herself by giving everyone a UV-shaded bench (e.g. a low field to sit on beneath a large field hung overhead) and conveying an oddly specific epithet in Tamil she'd learned from her dad.

A ways down the dirt path the group came to a narrow between large rocky outcroppings. Standing alongside the trail were a quartet of signs, each mounted on a wide base rather than set into the ground, presumably so they could be moved. Each was distinctive in terms of message, style, and construction.

The first was a neatly trimmed construction of what looked to be teak. In expressive letters of yellow was painted, "You should probably turn back."

The second was made of polished aluminum. In uniform, printed letters that were extremely familiar to Connie, was the message, "The abandoned excavation ahead contains multiple hazards inimical to one's well-being including but not limited to: jagged surfaces, potentially scalding water, oxidized industrial cast-offs, and falling debris. This area is closed to all unauthorized individuals."

The next was made of driftwood and leaned drunkenly despite its base. It showed a colorful pictograph of rocks falling and squishing frowny faced people. The use of light and shadow in the image was surprisingly rich, if a little faded with age.

The final sign was made of two fence posts hammered into a base of particle board, with a wolmanized two-by-four affixed to either post by a pair of railroad spikes. Connie swore she could make out Jasper's finger indentions in various places. Printed in large, block letters was simply, "NO".

The Cool Kids started walking past them without sparing more than a moment's glance.

"Um, guys?" asked Sadie. "I don't want to be the worry wart but is it okay to be here?"

Connie, who had been seemingly absorbed in inspecting the sign with yellow lettering, looked up and added, "These are definitely warnings from the gems."

Jenny gave an insouciant shrug, every inch of her body language unworried and mildly amused. "Yeah, it's fine. We've been here a few times and it's been alright. I figure they put those signs up to keep teens from using the place to hook up."

Connie found that so staggeringly unlikely that she was rendered speechless.

Sadie blinked in confusion. "Hooking up in an abandoned quarry? Really?"

"Hey, don't knock it, Shortcake. Not all of us have access to an unsupervised break room during business hours," answered Jenny.

That only raised _more_ questions for Connie, her eyebrows somehow climbing higher up her face as she glanced between a crimson Sadie and a smirking Jenny.

Buck took a sudden interest in the nearby rocky outcropping, his poker face otherwise impenetrable.

Sour Cream's eyes bulged a little as he marched with as much speed as his impractical pants would allow over to grab Jenny by the elbow. He then pivoted her around and back down the track. "Don't, uh, don't sweat it, guys. It's cool. I mean, the water isn't, that part was on beat, but the rest is just noise."

"Well... if you're sure," said Sadie before squaring her shoulders and tromping forward, "then I'm game. Let's go!"

Connie lingered, uncertain.

"A prison made of social mores has no bars, Connie," said Buck in his zen manner.

 _No. No! This is dumb. I know this. Why am I even considering this?,_ howled a corner of Connie’s mind as the rest of her cringed from the force of the mounting peer pressure.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea. The gems can be out of touch sometimes, but they’re sworn to protect humanity and they fight monsters for a living. These signs shouldn’t be ignored,” rallied Connie, appearing more confident than she felt.

“Nah,” Jenny said as she walked over to the signs. “We just didn’t happen to see ‘em--” Jenny dragged each sign a little ways off the trail where they were obscured by the bushes and rocks. “--cause they were hidden behind that bush. A completely innocent mistake.”

“Really careless of them to put signs in bushes like that,” Buck added.

Sadie chuckled and waved over at Connie.

“This… I mean, if something is dangerous in there, you’re not going to get in trouble, you’ll get _hurt_ ,” said Connie, holding firm, if only barely.

“Well,” said Sour Cream as he stroked his chin, “since we’re four humans going into a possibly dangerous area --which, by the way, I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I hadn’t been there before and found it plenty chill-- isn’t it your job as a magical warrior girl to come along to make sure we’re safe?”

 _Oh, I have GOT to be kidding me!,_ thought the vocal corner of Connie as she found herself following along, the line of her mouth turning up into a cavalier smile.

"Whoo, Con-con!" cheered Jenny. "Besides, you're with four adults who are varying degrees of responsible. I mean... what's really the worst that could happen?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MJ makes a lot of great art for the fic but not all of it makes it in. There are some great doodles and old designs in particular that stay hidden away on our project drive. So here, today, we thought we'd share a pair of them.
> 
> This first one is Hiddenite in her base outfit. During the fusion's debut back in _Universal Appeal_ MJ put her in an amalgam of the winter wear Peridot and Lapis were wearing, because MJ has an excellent eye for details like that.  
> 
> 
> This second one is the original design for Lapis' water mallet. There was a LOT of discussion about whether and how to give Lapis a weapon for when she couldn't rain hydrokinetic doom from on high (or just really wanted to hit stuff the old fashioned way). MJ doodled this up to help illustrate what we had settled on. A variant of this doodle was used in Episode 5, but this is the original; you'll not some differences between the two.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> On the omake front, a lot has happened.  
> *) [Momma-Dot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/25009194) by our own [MJStudioArts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts) \- “Peridot is home alone with baby Connie.” This fic is 100% canon.
> 
> *) [Comic Relief](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/25009164) by [citrusella](http://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusella/pseuds/citrusella) \- “Jeff and his new friend, Steven, begin an art project to make school in general, and the lunches specifically, more bearable.”
> 
> *) [Power Testing: Force Field](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/25012344) by our own [br42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- “Lapis, Jasper, Peridot, and Steven spend the day testing Connie's force field power, discovering both the limits of her new ability as well as the limits of her patience.” This fic is 100% canon.
> 
> *) [Self](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10843554/chapters/24072462), the second chapter of which just came out (and is REALLY REALLY GOOD), by [citrusella](http://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusella/pseuds/citrusella) \- "'I've been me my whole life and somehow I still don't know what that means.' Steven frets over the way he feels about different parts of his identity, but not before having an exciting day of adventure and discovery."
> 
> *) [Hair Dye](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11150145) by [Jess4400](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jess4400/pseuds/Jess4400) \- “Steven finds some hair dye. Connie finds a confidant.”
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	2. The Worst That Could Happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After you finish reading this chapter, there is a related omake story you might want to check out:  
> [Momma-Dot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/25009194) by [MJStudioArts](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts) \- “Peridot is home alone with baby Connie.” **This fic is 100% canon.**

“I think Wilford saw it as a rival. Or maybe it was just his sweet tooth, er, beak getting the better of him; you’d think a canary on a diabetes monitor would be wary of sugary food but you’d be wrong,” said Sadie with a small chuckle as she followed Jenny and Sour Cream through the rocky trail.

“Regardless, after tearing up the one on display, Wilford managed to ruin the entire platter of Oreo Orioles before I was able to get his blood sugar stabilized and him back in his cage. We could have requested a fresh selection from corporate but, I mean, it felt wrong to deny him his victory,” she finished.

“Oh, so that’s why you guys never carried those,” added Jenny from her position ahead of the stocky blonde. “I always kind of wondered.”

“With enough insulin and determination, even a caged bird can make a change. That’s deep. Good story, Sadie,” was Buck’s sincere, if stoic, reply.

 _See, this is nice_ , thought Connie from her spot at the rear of the line. _I’m glad I came along . It’s not even that cold or windy once you’re sheltered by the rocks. Sadie is having fun and the Cool Kids are, like, walking exceptions to so many stereotypes. Plus, I’m meeting new people without relying on Steven to introduce me. If I can make it through today without having to flee from a giant cockatoo monster or something then this may be a good day indeed._

Rounding a bend, she saw Sour Cream offering his hand to Sadie as the blonde stepped down onto the rocky escarpment that led downward into the quarry itself.

“Careful now. Jenny makes it look easy cause she’s all legs but some of those rocks are slippery,” said the DJ.

“Nice of you to notice,” called up the dark-skinned girl, blowing an exaggerated kiss toward the group, “but it takes more than legs. My nana is like a little mountain goat with a bun.”

Sour Cream chuckled. Sadie walked carefully, dividing her attention between the scenery and the downward slope.

It was an impressive view. All the rock strata were visible across the artificial cliffs of the quarry, bands of colors sparkling in the bright sunlight. Down in the bottom was a deep blue pond, shot through with maroon and amber from where rain-washed scree had dyed the quarry floor. Towards the middle was a long narrow fissure that was presumably the source of the hot springs given the eddies swirling away from it. Small streamers of steam were rising off the warm water and into the brisk air, giving the place a balmy feeling despite the February chill.

Once Buck was on the path down, Sour Cream extended his hand out to Connie. “Here ya go, Connie. Oh hey, if you see Steven, tell him I should be able to afford that theremin soon. It’s gonna be sweet working some spacey sounds into the special project I got going on,” and the DJ was already bobbing along to the music he was composing as he helped Connie keep her footing.

“Thanks. I’ll be sure to tell him,” she said smiling. Looking thoughtful for a moment, she added, “And thanks for listening to me vent back in the car. I think I needed that.”

Still bouncing to the tunes in his head, Sour Cream flashed her a quick smile. “No problemo; happy to hear you out.”

As Connie picked her way down to the next ledge, she felt a kind of warmth prickling across her chest and a thought leapt to the fore of her thoughts.

_But it’s not as if venting really changes anything._

Stepping carefully, Connie felt the bile churn in her gut and her ire rise.

 _I mean, it’s not as if telling a bunch of teenagers my problems fixes them, she snapped inwardly, one hand steadying herself against the rock wall while the other went briefly to her gemstone. I’m still in a house with gems who might not be getting along, who might not even be_ there _from one week to the next! All because mom is gone._

Driven by the wave of indignation, Connie sped ahead, leaving Sour Cream behind and passing Buck. Sadie, arms out wide for balance, paused and said something with a smile, but none of it registered. Eyes hard and face flushed, Connie tried to forge past the stocky blonde.

 _It’s not like I asked for any of this! Connie fumed, tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes. I didn’t ask to be made! It’s not MY fault I’m not mom, even if that’s what I know_ everyone _wants. And they act like I’m too_ naive _to see it. Like I don’t know that any one of them would trade me for mom in a_ second _if they had the chance! Not just them, but dad too! Why-_

“Uh, Connie?” called Sadie from behind her.

She didn’t answer. Like an avalanche, the thoughts had become a force all their own that Connie could only ride out.

_Well, maybe not dad, since he obviously doesn’t give a crap about family any more, her fingers clutching tight at the facets of the stone visible above the top of her shirt’s neckline. If he has a girlfriend, maybe he just wants to forget all about mom and me. I guess being away all the time wasn’t enough! Maybe he’ll have another kid with her and just erase me from his life completely! I bet that’s what he really wants!_

The Cool Kids noticed something was amiss and looked their way.

With an unsteady wobble, Sadie lunged forward and gripped the girl by the shoulder. “Connie!”

Like the cold splash of consciousness after waking from a fever dream, Connie was suddenly snapped back to reality. She blinked, freeing from the corners of her eyes a few tears which were now rolling down her cheeks. Taking in her surroundings anew, her heart still pounding, Connie shook her head. 

“H-Huh? Wha--” was all she could say as she sought her bearings.

“Are you okay?!” asked Sadie as she stepped around to face the girl. “You looked like you were freaking out.”

“I… did?”

Sour Cream, tagging along with Buck, caught up with them. “Yeah, you had this wild look on your face.”

“You seemed like you were gonna take a swing at somebody,” added Jenny from down at the pond’s edge.

“Everything cool?” inquired Buck, Connie’s own face visible in his mirrored shades.

Sadie broke eye contact with Connie by glancing down briefly, adding, "And does your gem hurt or something? You're clutching it pretty hard."

With an effort of will, Connie removed her hand from her gemstone, fingers aching slightly from the grip. _When had that happened?_ , she thought.

Blanching a little at being the center of attention, Connie studied people's shoes while saying, "I dunno, I just... I thought I was alright but then I started thinking about the stuff I'd said earlier in the car and I just... got mad. Really, really mad."

The Cool Kids all seemed to take the girl's explanation in stride and went back to what they were doing. Sadie searched Connie's face a little longer before saying, "Well... that's okay, I guess. Especially given what you were saying back there."

She gave a half smile and added, "When I come home from a really rough day I sometimes unleash some cuteness aggression. Helps keep me from letting things in one box of my life spill over into another."

 _Maybe?_ , Connie pondered. _That didn't feel normal. I mean, some of that is stuff I've thought before but only when I was really feeling down, and never... Wait, what did she say?_

The two followed after Buck and Sour Cream as Connie gave a weak smile and asked, "Um, cuteness aggression?"

"Say you see some tourist walking a cute little puppy on the Boardwalk. So you think, ' _It's so cute that I just want to squeeze it!'"_ and Connie laughed at Sadie's expressions. "That's cuteness aggression. I have this big pile of stuffed animals my mom keeps adding to because I liked one she gave me back when I was, like, twelve, and sometimes giving a big-eyed penguin plush a good throttling keeps me from doing it to Lars instead."

Connie grinned with a little more sincerity than before. "According to scans Peridot took during a power testing, I did respond well to squeezing a stress ball shaped like a cartoon pear... so maybe you're onto something."

They reached the bottom as Jenny, socks and shoes tossed haphazardly on the shore, waded out a little ways into the slightly steamy water. "Aaah," she sighed in relief.

Turning back to the stragglers, Jenny called over. "Hey, best thing for relaxing is this right here. Hot gravel," she said pointing down and rubbing her feet along the bottom. "It's like a hot tub with a foot rub."

Sadie and Connie, who were both wearing attire better suited to walking around Delmarva in late winter than exploring a sheltered hot springs, shared a glance and shook their heads.

"You, uh, have fun, Jenny," answered the blonde. "Connie and I will hang out on the shore with the... guys?"

"Pants, become shorts," said Sour Cream as his baggy pant legs unzipped at the knee, then waded out over towards Jenny.

Buck, barefoot but still wearing black slacks, simply stepped into the water heedless of his damp clothes. He turned to the girls, "Damp clothes are transitory while memory endures. Plus, tonight's laundry night."

Eschewing a force field bench ("Uh, they tend to vanish when I'm distracted so we should probably sit on something that won't disappear if I get a text or something") Sadie and Connie got comfortable on a little outcropping that was extending over the water.

"It's pretty quiet here," observed Sadie as the group figuratively (and literally in three cases) soaked in their surroundings.

"Yeah, the rocks are great for listening," Buck said, gesturing to the walls around them.

"Heh... I-I guess," said Connie, a hard, hot knot of unease keeping her from relaxing like the others.

Sour Cream smiled and sent a little splash at Jenny. "Plus, there's no one around for miles, so you can be as loud as you want around here, right, Jenny?"

"Yeeep," Jenny chuckled, waggling her eyebrows at the pale blonde.

Sour Cream sighed, his cheeks flushing slightly. "You know, it's not fun when I get flustered about you making those kinds of jokes, but when I do it, nothing; no reaction."

Jenny tittered, waded over, and rested her head on his shoulder. "I can't help it that I was born perfect and shameless."

Buck just chuckled. Jenny blew him a kiss.

Connie looked between the three, ambient dread shouldered aside by the feeling she'd get when Lapis would say something seemingly normal that would cause Peridot to stammer and blush.

Sadie, however, started chuckling. "You know... I just realized something. This is all kinda horror movie-ish, don't you think?"

"Huh?" Sour Cream said.

"How you mean?" Jenny asked as she walked over to lean against the girls' outcropping like a very chill mermaid.

"Well, think about it," said Sadie. "We're in a secluded place, a bunch of kids having fun, no one _anywhere_ nearby..." and she interrupted herself with another laugh. "I mean, I've seen enough slasher flicks to kinda wonder if this is the part where the guy with the axe jumps out."

Everyone was silent for a moment, as if to allow the serial killer his debut.

When one failed to materialize, Buck gave a snort. "Yeah, art imitates life and life imitates art. Which are we?"

Jenny rolled her eyes but looked at the man affectionately. "Ah, Shortstack's gone and got Buck into fortune cookie-mode. If Shades starts talking about one hand clapping, I say we let the movie monster have him first."

"I'm not actually allowed to watch those movies," said Connie, not for the first time feeling a little exposed. "Peridot is pretty strict about movie ratings."

Sadie leaned over towards her. "Come over to my house; I've got tons. We'll say you have a part-time job or something," she stage whispered.

Jenny laughed and offered Sadie a fistbump.

Connie chuckled then stopped as she began to seriously mull the idea over. "That... I dunno, that-- I guess that might be fun. I just have to organize it to accentuate the positive and mitigate the negative," she said, applying Sadie's advice from the car.

"That's the idea. Compartmentalize!” exclaimed Sadie. “So, there was this one I was watching last week-" but her words were cut off by the sound of shifting rock and a splash.

Connie's head shot up, the hot turmoil that was roiling in her gut springing to the fore once more, this time as fear. "W-What was that?" she asked while trying to look in all directions at once.

"Um... yeah, what was that?" echoed Sour Cream.

Buck put a hand on the DJ's shoulder. "Come on, man. You know this place makes noises sometimes. It's nothing to worry about."

"Yeah!" Jenny said full of bravado. "Nothing to wo-aaah!" her statement turning into a scream as she slid deeper into the water.

"Jenny!" Buck said, his voice laced with emotion for the first time that day.

Sadie lunged forward, flattening herself on the rock as she grabbed Jenny's arms. Sour Cream splashed forward urgently.

Connie, meanwhile, felt hot all over. The steam on the water seemed thicker, like the hot breath of something large and terrible that was preparing to swallow her whole. Fear the likes of which she hadn't felt since the worst moments atop the Lunar Sea Spire gripped her, freezing her in place now as it had then.

Sadie made a growl as she tried to haul Jenny up out of the water, thick muscles straining.

"Whoa! Ow-ow-ow, uncle! Lemme go, Sadie, before those sausage fingers of yours leave bruises," objected the woman in a voice not at all like someone being pulled under by some unknowable horror.

Sadie, in an expression Connie found very Jasper-like, stared at the teen, bewildered, then slowly released her grip. "What?"

"You were faking it?" asked Sour Cream incredulously.

"Pretty convincing, right?" Jenny laughed. "Oooh, I'm so bad~"

Buck turned and stared at the cliff opposite the group. "Whatever. Buck finds your charade boring."

Sadie, having gotten back to a seated position, glared down at Jenny. "I didn't find that funny, Jenny. I left work to get away from people leading me on."

Sour Cream, voice tired, added, "Man, that's super lame."

"It was just a joke, Shortstack. Lighten up. And come on Boo and Boo-Two, you all can't stay mad forever," she cooed. She tried to sashay over toward the guys but had to settle for wading forward with a smirk.

"Anger implies investment. This drama is beneath me," said the stoic.

"I'm just bummed out. You totally harshed the mellow we had going on here," muttered the DJ.

"Jeez, when did you all become such babies? You all are freaking out like Con-con did comin' down here," snapped Jenny.

"The heck, Jenny? I-I thought we were all having fun a minute ago. What's gotten into you?" objected Sadie, her brow furrowed and her mouth tight.

"You all are the weird ones. Nothing wrong with me," she huffed, fluffed her hair, and stuck her nose into the air.

Connie cringed, pulling her knees up to her chest as she tried to take deep breathes. She was thwarted by the tightness in her chest and the suffocating heat. _This was a bad idea. Why did I come?! I should have never left the house!_

For a moment, Connie was only peripherally aware that the others were saying things. Her world had shrunk down to her, her fears, her regrets, and the omnipresent heat. And then, bit by bit, the suffocating emotional blanket lifted and Connie felt, if not cool then at least not so scorched.

Once more her hand had at some point gone to her gemstone and gripped at it fiercely.

In a moment that mirrored Steven’s description of what it’s like to accidentally over-adjust his is hearing aids, the noises of the world around Connie crashed into her with an almost physical force.

Jenny was badgering Buck for attention, the latter refusing to so much as acknowledge her. Sour Cream was sitting slumped in the shallows looking dejected. Sadie had wandered a little ways off and was trying to wrench a rusty piece of rebar out from a pile of industrial debris.

Connie got up and ran towards Sadie. Hearing the girl’s approach, Sadie gave a mighty heave, pulling the rusty metal free, then held it overhead like a club and gave an angry shout. 

“Aah-Connie?!” was what her warcry morphed into, her expression confused, and her weapon lowered slightly.

Putting her hands up and preparing to will a field into place if needed, Connie addressed the blonde. “Sadie… what are you doing?”

The blonde blinked as though she were confused about that herself, before answering. “I… just- So that talk earlier about isolated teens and axe murderers got me kinda on edge. Someone should be ready for trouble and it sure isn’t going to be those three,” she said dismissively, gesturing to the trio.

Glancing back, Connie saw that Jenny was splashing Buck as he simply waded away, all while Sour Cream muttered something about ending up thirty and operating a fishing boat.

Slowly lowering her hands, Connie said, “Sadie, all of this feels wrong. Just a moment ago I was having the worst panic attack I’ve ever experienced and, I mean, is this how Jenny and the others normally act?”

Sadie considered this, all while surveying the area continuously; another moment where the stocky clerk was reminding Connie strongly of Jasper. “Wait, in _Polterguest 2_ , the malevolent force made everyone act unhinged until they either fled or turned on one another. Is that what’s happening here?”

 _I really need to watch these movies_ , thought a corner of Connie that made the rest of her want to roll her eyes.

“Whatever this is, it started when we came in the quarry so I hope it’ll go away if we get everyone out,” was Connie’s response.

Sadie nodded then suddenly, in a teeth-rattling bellow, she shouted to the three in the water. “HEY! EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL!” and then in a slightly less forceful tone, “Anyone who doesn’t want to wind up dying to make the second act more suspenseful needs to get back to the car! And so help me,” she said brandishing her rebar, “if one of you drops the keys or twists an ankle running from the killer, I’m going to-”

“THANK you, Sadie!” interrupted Connie, trying to keep things from spiraling too far out of control.

Jenny gave a shrug, hooked her arms under Buck’s armpits, then began dragging him toward the shallows, the man leaning unresisting into her.

Sour Cream, if he’d heard her ( _How could he not?_ ), made no response other than curling up on himself fractionally more.

Another wave of heat washed over Connie, causing her to stagger. Her chest felt like it was on fire and- and…

 _Why do I bother? No one listens to me. I don’t know_ anything. _Jasper wants me to be some sort of great leader but I couldn’t even stop four friends from walking past obvious warning signs. I’m a failure and a joke. ALL the heroine demerits. I failed at the Spire. I turned into a baby in front of my dad. Jasper had to save my life and carry me through most of the stupid Pyramid Temple. I can’t hold this family together like mom could, so what am I even good for? I wish that fog would just swallow me up so no one would have to- to-_

Once more the wave of emotion --this one causing crippling self-doubt and depression-- broke; Connie felt she’d just turned away from a bonfire. The noise of the world erupted around her, catching her off-guard a second time, not least of all because Sadie was yelling in her face.

“-said snap out of it, you good-for-nothing disaster magnet! If I have to haul each and every one of you out of here, I will. I am so the Final Girl of this low-rent horror flick so everyone should listen to me so we can get outta here and ROLL THE FRICKIN’ CREDITS ALREADY!”

From out in the water, Jenny called out, “Are you two talking about me over there? ‘Cause you should be~”

“CAN IT!” Sadie shouted back.

With Sadie’s attention momentarily elsewhere, Connie was able to regain her bearings. Buck was floating face up in the water. Jenny was admiring herself in his glasses while occasionally splashing water on his face. Sour Cream was splayed out on the shore, half in the water, and looking as miserable as Connie had ever seen a person appear.

The center of the pond was now a fog bank of impenetrable steam that was spreading outward.

“Whatever it is is getting stronger,” Connie said. “Let’s try and get the Cool Kids out of here. I can come back and get the gems to help deal with whatever this is.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying, _genius!”_ said Sadie with a furious look in her eyes.

Connie took an involuntary step back. “H-How about you, uh, get Buck out of the water while I try and get Sour Cream standing?”

Rather than answer her directly, Sadie broke into a sprint towards the water, shouting orders and invectives at the pair still in the pond.

Connie jogged over and bent at the waist to look down at the dejected DJ. “Sour Cream, you okay?” Connie asked.

Sour Cream blinked away some of the tears that were streaming down his cheeks and focused on Connie.

“Nothing ever works out for me,” Sour Cream said. “My friends are mad now, my step-dad thinks I’m a disappointment, my _real_ dad doesn’t care ... I just--”

Connie reached down and hauled, pulling Sour Cream back into a slumped, seated position. Gently she squeezed his shoulder. “Sour Cream, I know you’re hurting, but it’s just because of this place,” Connie said. “We gotta get out of here.”

Sour Cream shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “nothing matters ...”

Sadie, with Buck in a fireman carry over her shoulders and dragging Jenny by one hand, blurted out, “Sour Cream, you are too cool to suddenly start sucking like this now!”

“ _Sadie!”_ Connie scolded, glancing back.

“Rra! This magical anger thing is hard to deal with even without everything else,” which was the closest thing to an apology Sadie was capable of at the time.

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Hey, lay off him, Sadie Kong. Only one who gets to pick on my boys is me. Now, tell me why I should be following you again?”

“Because,” Sadie said through gritted teeth, “if you follow me to the car, I promise you I will tell you _all_ about what I think of you. At length. In detail.”

Jenny nodded at Sadie’s sensible response and went back to tweaking Buck’s nose, saying, “You can’t ignore me forever~”

Connie moved around to the front of Sour Cream and tried to haul him to his feet. 

“Man, don’t bother. You’re young. You’ve still got time. It’s over for me,” he moped but was otherwise unresisting.

Despite Connie being a fit thirteen-year-old and Sour Cream being a beanpole of a grown-up, Connie was still a thirteen-year-old and he was still grown-up. As a result, the DJ ended up slumping forward onto Connie, delivering a slow motion headbutt to the girl.

As soon as their foreheads touched, Connie felt a rush of heat and a well of despair open up inside her. Several seconds and an eternity later, Connie was blinking away tears as the volume knob of the world was turned back up.

“-bout that. We get out of this and I’m never ignoring another sign ever again,” said Sour Cream, panting slightly as he held Connie to his chest in a bridal carry. “I’m also gonna hit the gym, because, like, it’s been barely fifty feet and I’m already feeling the burn.”

Sadie, soaked from the navel down, Buck slung over her shoulders, Jenny hauled along by one hand, and her trusty (and rusty) length of rebar still gripped in the other hand, tromped past. “Suck it up, glowstick boy. She tends to snap out of whatever that is after- Ah, there she is.”

“Yeah, uh, thanks Sour Cream but I can walk from here,” stammered Connie.

Once on her own two feet, Connie looked around while talking to Sour Cream. “What exactly happened and, uh, how are you not moping over by the shoreline anymore?” 

The pond, meanwhile, was only scarcely visible for all the fog and a towering column of heated air and steam extending hundreds of feet up from the water’s center.

“I kind of bumped your head with my head and then suddenly I didn’t feel like the living embodiment of a Game Over screen. Your, uh, gem thingie was all lit up for a second and then you started bawling. Then-” but he was cut off by Sadie’s angry interjection.

“-Then the lake fogged over, which is never a good sign whether you’re dealing with supernatural horror or just plain ol’ crazies in the woods. And now we’re getting the heck out of here double time because as soon as escape seems possible, that’s when the monster shows up and-”

There was a geyser of water that sprayed easily a hundred feet in the air, causing a cascade of hot water to rain down on all five of them. A noise like whalesong, deep and guttural, issued forth. The water of the pond overshot its banks by a full thirty feet before receding. A muddy lake bottom was barely visible as the water drained away as though…

As though something _very large_ had just stepped out of the water.

“#@%&, I hate being right all the @$%# time,” swore Sadie as she turned away from the pond and began running for the rocky ramp out of the quarry, Jenny struggling for a moment to keep up.

Connie and Sour Cream shared a look and then sprinted after them.

The whalesong grew louder, clicks, chirps, and hisses entering the mix. Despite Drill Zero-Thirteen ( _When making a full retreat, run at full speed regardless. If you look back and start running faster, you’re doing it wrong)_ , Connie found herself stealing glances over her shoulder. For a split second she saw _something_ , something _BIG_ , silhouetted in the mist but then it vanished.

They were perhaps a dozen feet from the ramp when a wave, not of water, but of raw emotion crashed over the group, Connie’s gemstone glowing dully as a host of feelings shot through her mind like a cannonball.

Sour Cream reeled and fell over, a dejected ‘meh’ escaping his lips before going still save for the slow rise and fall of his breathing. Jenny flopped down muttering something about ‘beauty sleep.’ Sadie laid Buck down as gently as the circumstances would permit, the man as lethargic and unphased as ever.

Down on one knee, Sadie panted for a second before planting the stake of rebar in the ground in front of her, roaring her defiance into the mist, and hauling herself to her feet.

Improvised weapon held aloft in fury, Sadie made it to the edge of Connie’s vision before staggering and slumping over, the stream of curses tapering off... then being replaced by a snore like a clogged ice maker.

Connie felt like someone was attempting to play piano in her head with a clenched fist, discordant noise and emotions wracking her. Still, that obstinate corner of her that could not be silenced noticed that, even in sleep, Sadie still held her rebar club in a white knuckle grip. That part of her announced, _Sadie the Rebarbarian, the Cimmillerian._

Focusing on the sheer, ill-timed, tasteless, _audacity,_ Connie sincerely hoped that wouldn’t be her last thought. After a beat she noticed that thinking suddenly wasn’t so hard; she just had to focused on this specific moment.

_Compartmentalize. That’s what Sadie- OH LISA PRESERVE ME THAT’S BIG!_

Connie had been staring at Sadie. Then, suddenly, _something_ was in her field of vision, interposing itself between her and the downed clerk (though the roaring snore confirmed that Sadie was still sound asleep).

Black, oily mass roiled like a disturbed pool of ink. Long limbs of midnight formed a gaunt humanoid shape that was bent almost fully in half. Its outline shifted continually, tricking the eyes into thinking they were out of focus. Even doubled over, it was more than two stories in height. Most striking of all were the eyes (so many eyes!): pupils that were vertical slits peered out from pools of pink sclera, eyes the size Connie's torso were placed haphazardly about the creature from the shoulders up to its oblong head.

It didn't move so much as appear in its new position, giving it an uncanny flickering movement like poor stop motion animation or a glitch in a video game.

It looked like a too literal interpretation of the phrase, ' _if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.'_ It looked like something that had leapt from a disturbed artist's canvas. It looked like a nightmare made manifest.

It was looking at many things, but right now it was most especially looking at _Connie._

The girl blinked and in that split second the nightmare monster looming was inches in front of her, filling the whole of her vision.

Connie screamed and took an instinctive step back, the rush of fear she felt being entirely her own creation this time.

A slit pupil the size of her practice saber dilated and focused on the yellow glow emanating from her chest. Without crossing the intervening space, the creature nudged her shoulder, causing her to stagger back a few more steps.

The brief moment of contact was like being blasted with hot water by a too-rowdy Lapis. Connie reeled once more, unable to process anything save the sudden brightness of her gem and the intensity of the emotions imposed on her.

The moment passed and Connie came once more to her senses. Bathed in yellow light, she saw an oily black residue sliding up her arm and over to her gemstone. A hazy black aura radiated off the Citrine gem like the flame around a wick.

The nightmare monster looked at Connie expectantly.

_My gem is dissipating this black stuff. Is this something mom used to fight? It doesn't seem overtly hostile though. Did she... keep it from getting too big?_

That irrepressible corner of Connie's mind radiated mirth as it imagined Citrine giving a shaggy nightmare monster a haircut.

_Ugh, I feel like there's something dad said when I was aging backwards, that was relevant but it’s like trying to remember something from when I was six!_

Connie spared a look at Buck, Jenny, and Sour Cream, all incapacitated or asleep as ( _snooore)_ Sadie was.

_Well, I'm certainly not fighting this thing, and running away isn't an option. Wasn't there some game Steven was talking about where you could beat your enemies with mercy?_

Filling herself with as much determination as she could, Connie took two steps forward and reached out with both hands to touch the nightmare monster. Its enormous head flickered forward, coming into contact with her forehead and palms both, her gem flared like a spotlight, and...

Within her mind, Connie was submerged in a fast-moving river of heat. Like a person drowning, Connie flailed, seeking any safety, any succor from the torrent...

> Buck fixed Connie with what she assumed was a sincere gaze. "You've got moxie. I respect that."  
>  "Really?" asked Connie. "Because I sure don't feel like it."  
>  The stoic frowned, removed his shades to look through them, then gave a sigh. "Naw, it was just a smudge. Forget I said anything."

Connie was plunged once more into the tumult of her thoughts until she cast herself back further to find something, anything to shelter her...

> “Have a pleasant day, dear. Try to avoid any fights,” said Peridot.  
>  “And if you can’t, be sure to win ‘em,” said Jasper, the corner of her wide mouth upturned.  
>  Then she thought better of it, the smile vanishing as she shook her head in dismay. "Nevermind. You're not a full Quartz, after all."

Her refuge ruined, Connie fell back further from the rising tide of mental pollution.

> “My point is this: was what Peridot did really so different? Does she really still need to prove herself to you? After all she’s done… for the Crystal Gems? For the Earth?” 
> 
> Connie looked at Jasper directly from across the Kindergarten control platform, making a tiny gesture toward her yellow gemstone. “For me?”
> 
> The Orange gem squinted, as if trying to literally see the flaws in Connie’s argument.
> 
> “Nope. Not convinced. Step aside; this is all getting smashed."

Connie screamed and fell to her knees. Stinging eyes and moisture on her face made her think for a panicked moment that she really was being washed away. Then she realized it was the tears streaming down her cheeks. Wiping them on her sleeve she saw that she was back in the mist-shrouded quarry. Her gem, complete with black corona, glowed brightly for a time before dimming but not quite going dark.

If the nightmare monster had shrunk in size, it was hard for Connie to tell. For its part, the creature was fixing her with a many-eyed stare that was equal parts confusion and anticipation.

Panting and wracked, her muscles protesting and her jaw sore from clenching, Connie wanted nothing more than to pinch herself and wake up from a terrible dream. In fact, she did just that on the extremely unlikely chance it worked.

It didn't.

 _Well, so much for_ that, thought her inner critic.

_I-I keep losing ground; getting saturated with whatever concentrated negativity this thing is made of. I think I need, like, mental sandbags to keep me out of hot water._

_Maybe I can use some of them to help prop up this shaky metaphor too,_ came the unhelpful observation.

With a mental eye roll, Connie tried to fix a bright point in her mind. Seize on it; accentuate; mitigate; compartmentalize.

Staggering to her feet, she approached the nightmare monster once more and, with a force of will, managed to accept the oily touch on her forehead and...

> After another moment, Greg cleared his throat and asked Connie, “To that end, would it be okay if you did something, uh, magical on camera somewhere in the backyard? I think that’ll make it clear we didn’t accidentally drive the car through the fence and blame it on gems.”
> 
> Connie agreed to come by in the morning and help Mr. and Mrs. Universe convince their insurance adjustors.
> 
> Once that had been sorted out, Greg went to haul some of the night’s equipment back into the garage while Steven was, after receiving a ‘mom look’ from Mary, sent to go get ready for bed.
> 
> With all the men gone, Mary sat down near Connie, a serious expression on her face. “Connie,” she said after a moment of quiet, “you need to leave.”

_Learn to pick your battlegrounds, Maheswaran!,_ Connie thought in sharp self-recrimination. Struggling again, she was washed further back…

> Connie tried to push up off the floor and drifted ten, fifteen feet up before settling back down with a cry of, “Yeaaah! Moon Girl!”
> 
> Taking a moment to observe the whirling obstacles overhead, Connie nodded to herself then jumped, soaring skyward.
> 
> Waiting until the last moment, Connie willed a small force field at an oblique angle into being, pivoted around, then kicked off, now going even faster.
> 
> Her laughter echoed throughout the chamber.
> 
> Two more force fields allowed for two more high speed course corrections and with that Connie had slipped inside the obelisk’s guard.
> 
> The partial human hit the object with a thud but managed to cling to it, arms and legs wrapped around it like it were the trunk of a tree.
> 
> “Pull out the gem!” called Jasper far below. The obelisk’s top swiveled to show a displeased face.
> 
> Agile fingers gripped at the lip between the gem and the stone face. Bracing her feet against the obelisk, Connie heaved, felt the gem sliding free and then…
> 
> The explosion threw Connie in a high parabolic arc, which she arrested only after a desperate (and jarring) roll across multiple midair fields.
> 
> Punch drunk, her concentration shaky due to four extant fields, covered in goosebumps, Connie none the less wobbled upright and pumped her arms in the air with a cry of victory.
> 
> Jasper heaved her way out of a tangle of honeysuckle. “Hey, Moon Girl,” called the gem from perhaps forty feet below, “where’s the gem?”
> 
> “Huh? But… I, uh, I lost it in the explosion.”
> 
> Jasper gritted her teeth, audible despite the distance. “We’ll never find it in this place! That thing is going to reform and who knows what damage it’ll cause, what _people_ it’ll hurt before we track it down again.”
> 
> The large gem turned and vanished into the vegetation, attempting in vain to salvage the victory that had literally slipped from Connie’s fingers.

Cast about on the current of suffocating heat and a corrosive cocktail of negative emotions, Connie bounced and dashed about until she struck on a clear memory to cling to…

> “In summation,” said Peridot authoritatively, “Connie is a burgeoning young woman of prodigious talent and numerous outstanding qualities. We are all proud of her accomplishments to date,” she paused to allow everyone to nod in response.
> 
> A little while later a full-size Connie was sitting across Peridot’s lap, hugging the Green gem close.
> 
> She then slid off of Peridot and pulled her father into a tight embrace.
> 
> They separated, Connie took a deep breath, then said, “Daddy... Dad, I’m sorry for keeping so much from you. It was just, well, so much has been happening that you weren’t here for and I really didn’t know how you’d take it.”
> 
> Doug, who was wiping his eyes and cleaning his badly smudged glasses, shook his head. “I think all parents forget that their children will grow up; however, not all fathers are so lucky as to have a daughter as impressive as you. That means I need to, that you deserve for me to, try twice as hard keeping in touch with my magnificent girl. That’s on me, not you, cupc-, uh, Connie.”
> 
> Connie and Doug smiled radiantly at one another.
> 
> He placed the glasses back on his nose and straightened up. “So, how about this: we’ll go out and have ourselves a nice dinner and you can tell me all about everything I’ve missed?”
> 
> Connie was about to agree when he added, “And then I can tell you all about Priyanka: the woman you’ll be vying with for my attention and affection with.”

_When does this all end?!,_ cried the girl, floundering, scrabbling for any purchase…

> “That’s what’s been so nice about today. I mean, sure it got off to the usual start,” she groused before her tone softened, “but then it turned all nice and, I don’t know, _normal_. I haven’t had a normal day in a long time.”
> 
> “That’s funny because I was gonna say the same thing, but opposite, but… not? Like, today has been crazy! You showed up at the Big Donut and then I’m seeing magical rainbow ladies and playing with a force field and I got to meet a girl who has a sword and fights monsters!” he exclaimed.
> 
> “It’s like, you’ve packed a Sandwich of Destiny every day for lunch,” he elaborated, garnering a chuckle from Connie, “and I’ve been eating a Normal-wich on rye and we were both wanting something different so today, I gave you half of mine and you gave me half of yours,” he said, a little breathless by the end.
> 
> At that Connie found herself smiling, a warmth permeating her that had little to do with the sunshine.
> 
> The sincere moment lingered for a time, then Connie spoke up. “Well, if you ever want to swap lunches again, you certainly know where I live. I’ll tell the gems not to hassle you at the door, by the way.”
> 
> Connie could practically hear Steven’s grin. “Sure. Oh! Can you, I don’t know, call me the next time you’re fighting a monster? Like you’re doing right now, in fact. I mean, you’re having an adventure with people you just met today but you didn’t bother to include me. Why? Is it because I’m not cool enough? Because I’m deaf? Because I cried that one time about Homestuck Kids having no arms? Why isn’t my memory good enough to get you through this, Connie? I thought I was your best friend! I… I guess I was wrong.”

Connie was too blasted by that failure to struggle at all for a time, the heat smothering her. Either from deliberate decision or sheer numbness, Connie allowed the entire Lunar Sea Spire time period slide right by. Eventually, she struggled feebly and found...

> Connie’s energy returned as her dismayed expression began to shift into something like exhilaration. She pumped her fists into the air and began to jump and twirl, laughing in excitement. “I did it! Lapis, Jasper, Peridot, I did it!”
> 
> Peridot had raised one hand to her visor, gawked at the readings, then let the hand fall slowly to her side. “Stars… she did it. The readings are unmistakable,” she mumbled.
> 
> Jasper’s smile grew incrementally.
> 
> Lapis, seemingly the last to catch on, threw her hands out surprise. “You summoned your weapon?!” Connie nodded so forcefully she nearly unseated her glasses.
> 
> Lapis met Connie’s huge grin with one to match and exclaimed, “That’s wonderful! Can you do it again?”
> 
> Connie’s expression fell. “Well, I mean, it’s been four-and-a-half months and I haven’t yet… and I’ve been trying really hard… and I even go and read in this same spot every chance I get. I’m like a dog who found a bone somewhere once and now I sniff around it just in case it happens again… and, I mean, I’m a Quartz. This is supposed to be natural! What’s… what’s wrong with me?” she asked, falling dejected to the sand, her eyes blurring with tears. Hot tears. Endless tears. So hot. An ocean of failure that-

-washed Connie away. She became a speck, a sad little dot adrift, forgotten, unloved and unmourned. On and on, out and out. Connie began to feel less, become less, care less. The eroding influence, the force too great for her to shelter against, reduced her to something small and helpless and mostly insensate...

> Indistinct shapes of light and shadow were all that Connie could see. Unlike a certain shadowy shape in a certain quarry, however, Connie felt no menace or fear in response to these. Quite the opposite in fact.
> 
> No, she wasn't hungry, she tried to say to the indistinct figure. She was upset but that was just a fleeting thing; it would pass soon. This was a happy memory, after all. Old and happy. Very old.
> 
> Ah, here it is. A hum. A song? A lullaby. The lullaby.
> 
> Distantly something tried to intrude on her. Something hot and scary. It didn't matter. Connie was safe here. Protected. Cared for. Loved. Here, Connie only had room for the aural blanket of comfort she was wrapped up in. Even the words of the song were unintelligible, unimportant for this message of unconditional love.

The lullaby came to an end but Connie held firm on this oldest of memories and listened to the pointy-haired silhouette again. And again. And again.

The river flowed. The gem shone brightly. The lullaby continued. The girl recovered.

* * *

Sadie's dream of meting out rebar-shaped justice to a who's who list of movie monsters dissolved into brain fuzz.

Given the state of discomfort she was in, she expected to wake up slumped over the table in the Big Donut’s break room. Instead she was... leaning on a pile of rocks? And what was she clutching?

She had to use her free hand to pry her fingers off the metal rod, and her palm still had indentations and rust ground into it after the thing was removed. 

_Well, that's part of the dream explained,_ she mentally drawled. _Now, where am I, what did I do, why am I damp from the navel downward, and why do I feel like I was weight training while running cross-country?_

Her brain managed to wake up enough to move another pertinent question up for her consideration. _Ah yes, and why does someone sound like they're putting a baby to sleep. If this really is a horror movie setup, that's a_ really _bad sign._

Staggering to her feet, she looked around and slowly recognized the abandoned quarry. _Funny, I remember it looking a lot more menacing for some reason._

Turning, she saw Buck, Jenny, and Sour Cream, each taking a rock-pillow nap of their own.

And in the middle of it all stood Connie, humming a song, that gem on her chest glowing a little while she was holding... something. If it was a baby, it certainly wasn't a baby _human._

"Uh, Connie? Wh-"

“Shhh” the girl cut her off, not looking up from whatever it was she was cradling. Then she added in a soothing voice, “you’ll wake him.”

_That doesn't rule out the horror movie setup... at all. Maybe I better hang on to ol' rusty here a little longer._

The glow faded and the humming, with it. Connie, radiating so much serenity Sadie expected cutesy woodland creatures to crowd around her, walked over and knelt behind a pile of scree to set the little whatsit down gently.

She walked back still wearing that Mona Lisa smile. To a veteran of the horror genre, that on an innocent-looking girl in a mysterious surrounding involving an unknown creature was more menacing than if Connie were brandishing a knife.

Without directly meaning to, Sadie retreated a step as Connie walked past her and towards the sleeping trio. While the girl had her back turned, Sadie surreptitiously retrieved the length of rebar.

Connie crouched down over Sour Cream and touched her forehead to his. There was a soft glow from her chest-gem and then the pale DJ opened his eyes, looking exactly as bewildered as Sadie felt.

"Whoa. I've never sleep-walked this far before. Why am I wet?" he drawled.

Connie visited Buck ("Why did the Buck stop here?"), then Jenny ("Did I use the wrong mushrooms on the pizza again?"), the two rousing as well.

"So, uh, before you go and do your Samara impression on me, mind filling in some blanks? Lots of blanks? All the blanks, in fact?" asked Sadie, the the well-worn grooves in her hand tightening around the rebar.

Connie stopped, blinked, and finally dropped the 'Disney Princess wandering into a Wes Craven flick' expression. "Um, I'm a little confused on some of them myself, but I suspect that there's some sort of feel-bad monster that lives in this quarry that my mom used to care for for reasons I'll be badgering the gems about later, and that we walked in on it when it had gone thirteen years between check-ups so it kinda splashed all of us with overheated emotional fallout or something."

"And the reason I'm expecting to have to haul the others to the car and then smash my TV so you don't crawl out of it later is...?"

"Because you got a heavy dose of unadulterated aggression and I think you internalize that by casting yourself as the hero of a horror film," came the girl's answer.

_Yeah, that sounds like Beach City-flavored weirdness more than something out of a Carpenter flick._

"Okay", she said dropping the rebar in the dirt. "Let's get this over with before I start demanding blood tests to make sure you all aren't part of the Thing or something."

* * *

The pizzamobile sped down the road and past the Beach City City Limit sign.

"So, is that sort of thing, like, normal for you?" asked Jenny.

Connie was slow to answer. Sadie thought at first that the girl was shy, but a glance said she was barely paying attention.; she'd been distracted a lot since they’d left the quarry.

"No. Well, kinda. Okay, I mean I've never dealt with anything like that before. I didn't even know I something like that existed, or that I was _even capable_ of dealing with it..."

She drifted off before shaking her head and saying, "Sorry, what was the question again?"

Sour Cream answered while Jenny navigated a sharp turn. "Is this, like, normal-weird or weird-weird for you?"

"Oh, right. So the particulars were unique but having _something_ happen while going out is kinda routine. It feels like I have something major come up every other week these days," she said staring off at the horizon for a moment before adding (with a hint of her former awkwardness), "I, uh, I'd understand if you didn't want me hanging out with you guys anymore."

Buck shook his head. “You present a much-needed counterpoint to our mundane world experience. We’re not gonna ditch you.”

"Besides," added Jenny, "We live in Beach City: freaky stuff happens. We know you and your rainbow aunts are keeping us from ending up like Ocean Town."

Everyone nodded at that statement of obvious fact.

Speaking back up, Jenny said, "Hey Shortcake. I'm a little hazy on the deets but did you really haul Shades here on your shoulders while dragging my ditzy badonkadonk along?"

Sadie was suddenly flushed enough to make up for Connie's lack of social anxiety. "Oh, I mean yeah, but we were all loopy on-"

"That's hardcore," cut in Buck.

"Yeah," said Sour Cream. "Maybe you could come with me to some of my gigs. The crowd’s are sometimes a little handsy on the rig."

While Sadie could only stammer, Jenny added, "I'm pretty interested in some of these horror flicks you've got. Muh boy here," and she and Buck fistbumped despite neither looking in the other’s direction, "got a sweet movie room with plenty of space. Oh! You can bring your friend along too. I hear those movies are good for making things interesting, ya know?" 

_Yes, it turns out I can blush harder. If Connie weren't a thousand miles away right now, I think my eyebrows would catch fire._

Visible from the rearview mirror, Sadie saw Jenny waggle her eyebrows. "We promise not to hear anything goin' on... if you'll do the same for us~"

Sadie managed to, inarticulately, convey an affirmative, and then leaned out the side of the pizzamobile to let the wind cool her fiery cheeks.

_This may have been a horror movie day but this certainly isn’t a horror ending, she thought as the scenery flew past. This is more like one of those cheeky 80’s movies that I will never in a million years admit to knowing word-for-word. Hmm, how would this go..._

_Protagonist delivers affirming message. Ending song fades in. Cue credits. Maybe have a split screen sequence showing something silly or karmic happening. Copyrights. Motion Picture Association of America. Circle wipe and then..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be an Epilogue posted on Friday to close out the episode as well as Sadie's final sentence. If you're wondering, Sadie's closing monologue is a reference [to the ending of the movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDfbWDLNjjE) we're borrowing from in the episode's title.
> 
> The Nightmare Monster and the gist of Connie's encounter with it have been planned since back when Episode 4 started. In fact, if you go and [reread Doug's scenes in and around the quarry](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10409274/chapters/23146530), you'll notice lots of little parallels from there that made it into chapters one and two of this episode. Below are the design drawings MJ had made back in early March:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> This has also been a good week for omakes.  
> *) [Feed A Fever](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/25247271) by our own [br42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- “Connie has gotten sick and Steven has rushed over to join Lapis, Peridot, and Jasper in helping the girl get better."
> 
> *) [Diving To New Depths](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11265408/chapters/25189308) by [Jess4400](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jess4400/pseuds/Jess4400) \- “Steven convinces Connie to learn how to scuba dive with him.”
> 
> *) [Best wishes, Connie And Steven, Saviors of the World](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11314782) by [Jess4400](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jess4400/pseuds/Jess4400) \- “The Gems can't take Connie to a mission in a volcano. Bummer, huh? Now she's getting dragged into going on a road trip with Steven, who is visiting his uncle Andy with his family in Mountain Town. Sounds fun, right? That's what she thought, too, until they get stranded at a Waffle House at 1 a.m. with a corrupted gem on their tail. Written for the Connieswap prompt, 'Travel.'”
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	3. Epilogue

_...an epilogue for anyone who stuck around in the theater._

* * *

Despite being possibly the worst, most harrowing experience she had ever endured, Connie's thoughts kept returning to the quarry.

Sometimes one of the older teens in the car would say or do something that would wrench Connie back to the present, but she never stayed there for long.

 _Hmm_ , observed her inner snarker, _I'm not sure if this is me passing through the Allegory of the Cave or just PTSD. I think Plato meant for the shadows on the wall to stay on their wall, so it's probably the latter._

Not rising to her own bait, Connie continued to walk the well-worn groove in her mind. _That wasn't a normal gem monster; for starters, it didn't have a gem at all. That thing recognized my gemstone though. It was frustrated from being so hot and fidgety; it just wanted to go back to sleep. It was like a... like a big, cranky baby; it didn't care about the others. Or me, really. Just that my gem could let it sleep soundly again._

_Mom took care of that thing... until she couldn't. I just took care of that thing. Apparently I can absorb and dissipate magical bad mojo. Yay? Seriously, what the heck kind of power is that?! Mom was a warrior gem so did she have to fight nightmare monsters? But... if so, why did she keep this one around? Why did I?_

_I really wish this thing came with an instruction manual_ , Connie thought for the umpteeth time, prodding her gem in a fit of pique.

* * *

"...Marty was threatening to sue mom but she says she stayed well outside the bounds of, uh, oh jeez, what's it called?"

Connie smiled listening to Steven on her phone, her mental image of the boy alternately signing and tapping his chin as he searched for the word.

She also knew well enough to hold the phone's speaker away from her ear for when-

"AH! 'Aggravated assault!' That's it," he said over-loudly and pleased with himself. "Anyway, that's pretty much how Marty and mom say goodbye to each other. Oh, dad says we're almost to the restaurant, which I'm pretty sure is dad-speak for 'wrap up the call.' You can't see it but he's sticking his tongue out at me."

Connie leaned back into the couch in her living room and laughed, the uncomplicated enthusiasm of Steven's antics were like a balm for her. "Where are you guys eating?"

Steven sounded unsure. "Oh, uh, 'P-h-o H-o-a-n-g' and I have no idea how to say it. It's family tradition to eat at a different little restaurant each time dad gets another big royalty check. When he got his first million, he left a thousand dollar tip for some tacos we got from a food truck. The lady chased us for three blocks thinking it was a mistake and kept trying to give the money back. Mom had to explain, like, twice in Spanish before she'd accept it. She named a meal after one of his songs, by the way. It's tasty."

Rolling onto her back and stretching out across the couch, she laughed long and hard. Then a detail tickled at the back of her mind, causing her to speak up. "Wait? Your mom knows Spanish?"

"Yeah. She learned it growing up, though she says she's super rusty. Other than being able to order a Comida de Cometa, I'm no help. Uh-oh, more dad-speak. _Yeah, I'm almost done,_ " called Steven to the apparently wealthier Mr. Universe who was taking his family to an obscure Vietnamese restaurant.

"Anyway, I won't be home until kinda late but we can still chat over Videophone afterwards if you want," he invited as she heard the sound of van doors opening and closing in the background.

"Not tonight. Today was really busy and I'm waiting on the gems to get home, but you can come over tomorrow. If you want to, I mean," she added, her long slumbering social awkwardness stirring slightly.

"Was it destiny-sandwich busy?" he asked, his voice a mix of concern and excitement.

 _Was it ever,_ she thought while saying, "This was a destiny footlong sub with chips and a drink."

"Whoooa, magical meal combo," was his awed reply.

"Oh, and when you come over tomorrow, you should bring your power diary," Connie added, thinking of the yellow spiral notebook with glittery letters glued to its cover that Steven had started months ago.

"Wait! _What?!"_ but that last word sounded kind of distant as noise indicated that the phone was changing hands.

Mary Universe's warm voice issued from the phone's speaker. "Steven will have to call you back, I'm afraid. Have a good night, Connie."

"You too, Mrs. Universe," answered Connie while in the background, just before the call cut out, she could hear, " _-ew power! Can we stop by a craft store? I'm going to need way more glit-_ "

* * *

Connie was dozing on the couch, still in her daytime clothes despite it being quite late, when the chime of the warp pad heralded the return of Jasper and Peridot.

"-es no sense. Sensor towers don't just fall over, and they certainly don't fall over sideways up a hillock," groused Peridot, as she absent-mindedly used the edge of the warp pad to scrape the snow from her gravity connectors.

Jasper stepped off the pad unconcerned with the layers of snow and mud caked to her clothes. She acknowledged Connie with her eyes as she responded to the irked technician. "They're fixed. Whatever did it left. Hi, squirt."

Peridot was fiddling with a holographic display and muttering when Jasper's statement penetrated. "Wait? Con-"

The rest of her sentence was cut off when Connie stepped into her guard and gave her a fierce hug.

On instinct Peridot lightly returned the hug, her face a mix of concern, satisfaction, and bewilderment. Everytime she tried to ask Connie about what was going on or why she was still awake, Connie responded by simply hugging her even harder.

Eventually Peridot got the hint, dismissed her displays, and hugged back in earnest.

In close, the Green gem could just make out a wordless tune that Connie was humming so softly as to be almost inaudible.

* * *

"The diversion had worked. The compound was under-defended. Citrine leading meant their fortifications didn't help much. Just as Biggs made us an entry point that thing appeared. Good news was the defenders lost all cohesion. Bad news was, so did we."

Jasper was standing at parade rest in the middle of the living room, the pose she usually struck when she was talking about a Rebellion battle.

Peridot was seated in her preferred spot in the inside corner of the couch. Connie was plopped down nearby. Both were sipping mugs of cocoa, though Connie had asked for hers iced; hot beverages had lost some appeal after the day she'd had.

"It pretty much went straight for Citrine, which meant it went straight into me. You can punch it. Blast it. Cut it up with a sword. The thing isn't tough, nor does it bother defending itself. But it's big, strong, and the way it moves means you can't dodge or block a hit. The fact that everyone around you is acting cracked doesn't help."

Connie took a sip from her mug as she tried to visualize the scene Jasper was describing. "So, mom used her powers to subdue it and then led you all to victory?" she asked.

The warrior shook her head. "No, she led those of us still able to fight into smashing the thing into an oily smear, then she used her powers to get everyone fit to retreat. Homeworld had air superiority all through the war until Lapis joined. In those days, if you didn't win fast, you didn't win at all."

"So this was before Lapis came to Earth?"

"Yeah. Good thing too. If she had been there, this planet would probably be down yet another continent."

Peridot choked on her cocoa at the indelicate way Jasper spoke, but she never moved to correct the Quartz.

"It came back sometime later. Again. And Again. Anywhere save for the flying structures. Not always so big, but always heading straight for Citrine. Eventually she and... another gem," and Jasper looked like she was swallowing a hot ember while she spoke, "went to try and subdue it preemptively. Citrine did what you did. Said it would sleep if it was left alone. Said it was her mess to clean up. She moved it to that hole in the ground after the humans digging there left for whatever human reasons."

"Ground seepage from subterranean springs as well as a decline in the market value of their product," said Peridot.

Jasper's expression of disinterest changed not a whit.

"Where did it come from? And how did it keep reforming?"

"Don't know. Citrine, she figured out how to beat the thing and then she moved on. There was a war to win. After that, there was a world to clean up. She was results-driven. She was a Quartz," said Jasper, her words brimming with approval.

_Well, that covers the history lesson, even setting aside the fact that Jasper's 'sometime later' could mean days or decades. But that still doesn't explain-_

"Why?" asked Connie, hours of confusion and anxiety and elation all packed into one syllable. "Why did mom happen to have precisely the power to stop a monster no one had ever seen before? If- If this were a story, I'd call that sloppy writing... and I've had quite enough of that in my books lately; I don't need it in my life too."

This time it was Peridot who answered, leaning forward so Connie could see the compassion behind her visor. "When we were laboring in the Prime Kindergarten together, I told you how Citrine and Rose Quartz gems were a bold new design, combining a wide range of powers with the Quartz physique."

Connie nodded, one hand unknowingly touching on her gemstone.

"The two were supposed to have radically different yet complimentary designs. Rose Quartzes had powers relating to the material: mass adjustment and unparalleled physical healing, to name two examples. Citrine Quartzes had powers relating to the immaterial."

Connie knew she had just learned something important. The promise mom had extracted from the gems, that they would let Connie forge her own destiny instead of following her mother's, meant they were extremely tight-lipped about their former leader’s powers. But right then, all Connie could think was-

"Force Fields seem pretty material to me!" cried the girl, summoning a small one and rapping her knuckles against it.

Peridot threw her limb enhancers into the air in frustration. "Powers are _weird,_ okay?! The Earth Kindergartners just crammed a staggering amount of resources into a line of prototypes and then waited to see what'd emerge. No one knew what Citrines were capable of back then. No one really knows what they're capable of today since a specimen from their trial batch ended the experiment at sword-point!"

Jasper cleared her throat. Loudly.

Peridot paused then took a deep breath, lowering her limb enhancers and activating their self-diagnostics. Years ago Peridot had confided to Connie that watching that subroutine play out had a calming effect on her.

After everyone had relaxed slightly, Connie said, "So what was the plan with the nightmare monster? After I was born, I mean."

"Wait," said Jasper. "You would figure it out. You _did_ figure it out," and the gruff gem radiated pride. Then she preempted Connie's follow-up question by saying, "If it woke up, we were going to lure it to an island and then have Lapis hit it with a tsunami. That works on most things."

"What I don't understand," asked Peridot, a floating digit rubbing her chin, "is how you and your companions entered the, hehe, _quarryntine_ in the first place? We placed signs that were designed to be sufficiently threatening without containing fantastic elements that might entice the more foolishly bold."

Connie's eyes went wide. "Signs? Uh, I think they must have fallen in the bushes or something." 

_This counts as compartmentalizing, right? It certainly counts as mitigating the negative._

"Oh, that fiendish foliage! Jasper, will you come and pound some iron stakes into the bedrock so I can mount the warnings prominently and permanently?"

Jasper gave Peridot a smirk. "You have to ask?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we come to the end of _Sadie Miller's Day Off_. Next Wednesday you can look forward to the start of **Episode 9: Connie and The Connie**
>
>> Connie gets an hourglass artifact and goes to see what things would have been like if she hadn’t failed the Lunar Sea Spire mission.
> 
>   
> 
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!  
> 


End file.
